4 lU'IJ.HTlN No. :!:{. 



Ill their songs, too, they preserve a note which easily shows 

 generic connection with Spinus piiuis, "Kezeem," or " Ke- 

 ziim," of peculiar pathos and penetration. 



FLAGSTAFF AND THE SAN FRANCISCO MOUNTAINS. 



The next stop was made at this trim little town in the 

 Arizona highlands. Of course the ornithologist's first desire 

 upon getting into the average " new " town is to get out. We 

 did so at once. As we set out from Flagstaff we had no inten- 

 tion of climbing San Francisco Peak, reported to be 12,oBl ft. 

 high ; but as we journeyed toward it along the level pine-clad 

 valley which lies at its feet, the desire grew upon us 

 until it became a determi. ation. A prospector whom we 

 met toiling toward town with a couple of burros, kindly 

 sold us a three-pint canteen, so that the water question w^as dis- 

 posed of. Up that carpeted valley we crept, every faculty on the 

 qui Vive for birds, until we reached a picturesque little canon 

 with solid, perpendicular walls, from the north side of which a 

 tiny stream of water trickled. This empties into a trough 

 which is evidently a great resort for the birds. On the way 

 the Chestnut-backed Bluebird and L,ong-crested Jay had come 

 to swell the life horizon. Here at the spring birds thronged 

 continually. Cassin's Finches, Arkansas Goldfinches, Lark 

 Sparrows, flycatchers, hummers, blackbirds, warblers — -a 

 vitascope, always in motion, ready to the eye, was the scene 

 of this spring. 



Time would fail to tell of the ascent, which was accom- 

 plished by noon of the next day. The panorama presented 

 from the summit of vSan Francisco Peak is rather unique for 

 its command of plain and de.sert and high plateau. Bird-wise, 

 however, this mountain mass is not large enough to attract a 

 great variety of strict mountaineers. Our mountain horizon 

 includes o.ly eight that one might not reasonably expect to 

 find in comparatively level countr}'. 



Here we had an experience of Ca.ssin's Kingbird which I 

 shall not soon forget. This bird was really first noted at 

 Thornton, where verticalis was also common. The resem- 

 blance was so close that cassini was suffered to pass as a pos- 

 sible young verticalis. Experience on the lower slope of San 

 Francisco Mountains, however, dispelled this illusion. When 



